John Porter Interim
by KiplingKat
Summary: A short fic -4 parts- to show what happened to John Porter between Ch.s 9 & 10 of "So I Met John Porter..."
1. Chapter 1

_Note: The following story takes place between Chapters 9 and 10 of my "So I met John Porter…" fanfic. All the previous disclaimers apply. _

-August 2010-

"Porter," I answer my mobile as I get out of the car.

"It's Layla. We have a lead on who hired your little Jamaican friend."

"Let me guess. A is for American?"

"And certain national military cemeteries. I'll fill you in when you get back in town."

"And Alex?" There was some resistance when I demanded an agent to watch the house she was sharing with Dianne's mother. But even if Alex was not the target, Layla understood that I was not coming back to London until she put someone on the house. It's nice to have a C.O. that gets you.

"Eyes are in place. She'll be fine John."

"Thanks. I have some things to take care of here, but I'll be in tomorrow morning. I hear congratulations are in order, Captain."

"They are and thank you."

"Does Firm protocol allow NCOs to take their superior officer out for a celebratory drink?"

"It does in my part of the Firm."

"Friday then, if prevailing conditions permit."

"Yes well, we'll talk about that. See you tomorrow."

I turn off the phone as I walk into the churchyard. In mufti I look like another tourist, and so hopefully pass unnoticed. When they moved the barracks to Credenhill, they moved the old clock tower and created their own cemetery for the Regiment's fallen, very organized and formal and military. So I was glad to hear that Karen Andrews had honored her husband's request by burying him in the traditional plot in St. Martin's. There is something about the old stone church with its red doors surrounded by the old family graves, the wall of trees screening the yard from the suburbia that has grown up around it. I remember Steve saying when he first saw it that if it was any more picture-postcard English country-side he'd start sweating tea, but deep down he'd liked the place. It feels like a good place to have a rest, and with S.A.S' long history here they know how to take care of us…of him.

I hadn't been here since I left the Army. Steve died while I was in the field, so I was spared a funeral that could have turned very ugly if I had showed up. When I got back, I was busy debriefing and then getting ready for Greg's jaunt to the Caribbean. Alex had come down on the train…

_We are the Pilgrims, master: we shall go_

_Always a little further: it may be_

_Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,_

_Across that angry or that glimmering sea,_

_White on a throne or guarded in a cave_

_There lives a prophet who can understand_

_Why men are born: but surely we are brave,_

_Who make the Golden Journey to Samarkand_.

Crossed the glimmering sea and a few blue mountains. And I'm still making the journey, still above ground.

Fuck it and the excuses, I didn't come because I hadn't. I saw Mike and Keith's names on the clock tower, but I hadn't felt comfortable staying long. Before I cleared my name, the looks I got from the personnel told me I was there only on sufferance. After the truth came out, after Steve had cleared it for me, I just...hadn't. But driving Alex back to her Grandmum's in Leominster, I didn't have any more excuses.

The Regimental plot stands behind the church, at the back of the gentle jumble of the family graves, standing in precise rows of uniform clean grey stones as if on parade. The shield with the winged dagger carved above the names with the cross below. I crouch down by the newest one.

_85423697 Sergeant _

_Stephen L. Andrews_

_22 Special Air Service Regiment_

_6th of May, 2010. Age 38._

_Beloved Husband and Father, Proud Soldier. _

"How've y'been, Steve?" I reach out to touch the cool stone.

_They told me at the outset you were unlikely to wake up, and as time went on I knew, logically, that you probably weren't. But there was still some part of me that hung on, that needed you to wake up, just to talk to you, see that take-on-the-world-and-then-take-the-piss-out-of-it expression again. But that got mixed up in the chance you held to clear my name. The part of me that wanted you to wake up and tell me what had happened. To tell me it wasn't my fault…To forgive me. And after a while I had wrapped my hopes in you so much, had my head jammed so far up my own arse in my misery, I forgot that I just missed you. I didn't realize that until Haiti, running the local police in circles in the middle of the night while lifting supplies from a warehouse. Christ it was easy, pack of school kids could have pulled it off. When I turned to have a laugh with you there was some Yank there instead. That moment I missed you so much it hurt. _

_In the hell I was living in, I'd forgotten how much I just missed having my best mate around. _

_But you did it in the end didn't you? You still watched my back and saved my arse. I wish I could have done the same for you. _

_I wish that I could at least still hang onto the hope of talking with you one more time…._

_Fuck!_

"John."

_Karen._ _Shit._

"'M sorry." I wipe my face as I start to move away before it gets as ugly as it was whenever we ran into each other in Hospital.

"John…wait."

I turn to look at the small brunette, her wide face and brown eyes. She and the tall red-head Steve always were an odd couple. She had always seemed so gentle and controlled, but before they married Steve had told me with a wicked grin there was a fire under there and I had gotten the worst of end of it when he was injured. I don't feel like getting spat on again so I stay silent, waiting to see what she does.

Her arms cross over her chest as if the August breeze coming in off the fields is cold. She looks at Steve's grave for a moment. "Claire rang me, told me you had called at the HQ to find where Steven was. She felt I should come talk to you."

"Why?"

"You know how much went through her desk back when you were with the Regiment, John. She's the head of the administrative staff now. She handles the personnel files."

And would have seen the inquiry decision being added to mine. Non-essential, if vital, family information being disseminated in the time-honored tradition. I suddenly realize I can breathe again and try to swallow the ache in my throat.

"It seems I owe you an apology," she continues.

"You weren't any angrier at me than I was at myself," I reply quietly. "I thought I had killed him too."

"Yes," she says, stepping forward. "But I knew how you two felt about one another. As hard as it is being an SAS wife, competing not only with the military but with the members of a patrol, with you, for his attention, the way you kept visiting him over the years, I should have known you would have taken your own life before you hurt Steve willingly. It was a mistake, a mistake I should have forgiven before now."

Easy to say now that's it's not my fault anymore. I wonder if the circumstances had not changed if she would be standing there talking instead of taking a swing at me, but it's not worth the trouble to find out and Steve deserves a little peace.

"Yeah, well..."

"Yeah…" She motions me over to the bench by the Falklands Wall. _Poor bastards._ "I heard about Dianne, I'm sorry."

"I had no idea she was even ill." It's hard to keep the weary resentment out of my voice.

"Well that's Dianne all over," Karen snorts. "I never met anyone who could harbor such a deep seated grudge and never admit it. Even when I first met you it was obvious she was unhappy, blamed you, yet determined to play the perfect, if martyred, military wife. I'll admit that when I heard she left I…but I never understood what she was always so mad at you for."

I shake my head as we sit down, "Not being there for her and Lexie, not giving her the life she wanted. I fucked up early on and tried to make up for that, but it was never enough."

"How is Lexie?"

"Dealing with it. It was a big shock of course, but she's adjusting. We just came back from a trip, I think that helped." We update each other on our kids, Alex joining OxFam and Matt making the school football team. "How is he handling it?" I nod at the graves.

She hesitates, "Steve wasn't really a part of Matt's life since he was three. When he was five he stopped wanting to go in the room with me, and when he was seven he stopped making the trip. It wasn't his father anymore, just some strange man lying in a bed that his Mummy visited. I think that was the hardest moment for me, Matt was moving on as life was, and Steve couldn't and because he couldn't I wasn't. Terrified and guilt ridden about moving forward, clinging to an impossible hope of moving back."

I look at the grass. "I was away when he passed on. Took me this long just to…."

She nods in understanding. "I started mourning him when Matt stopped coming down to Hospital. That was when I realized that for his sake, I had to…not let go, but shift the focus of our lives to the living. Steve's passing hurt but it was over at last, for him and for us."

"Yeah, I understand."

"I…I'm getting married soon."

There's a flash of rage on Steve's behalf, barely in the ground and his wife is shagging someone else. But I remind myself he hasn't been a husband to her in eight years sort of the way Dianne had not been a wife to me when I met Dani. Not that it was Steve's choice, but in the end result is the same: Loneliness.

Swallowing my anger, I cover her hand with mine, looking into eyes holding almost as much guilt as I used to see in the mirror, asking for the forgiveness I once needed. "Good. He wouldn't want you to be alone."

She breathes deeply as she grips my fingers for a moment before letting go. "As long as I did not take up with anyone in the Navy, that was the only restriction he put on me," she chuckles as she tears up.

Every couple with a spouse that goes into combat has had that discussion. "I don't think he would have been too happy with anyone in RLC either."

That one gets her laughing and soon we're swapping stories about that mad ginger bastard I served with in Kuwait, and the more tempered man I came to know during the Selection, the S.A.S. testing and training programme that turned a couple of blunt instruments into precise fighting and intelligence gathering machines. But at first it was our competitiveness with each other that really honed us, and then our friendship as we started leaning on each other to make it through. At first abusively, and then inseparably, playing Steve's straight man the whole time. All the trouble we got into and pulled each other out of over the years. My best mate. By the time I walk Karen to her car, we're cried and laughed out.

I think Steve would be happy with that.

I'm surprised when she hugs me, but I return it. I really needed this. The sadness is there, but it doesn't hurt as much. Maybe the last scraps of guilt have been cleared away. Maybe for Karen too. "I'm glad you came down. Be happy."

"You too. Thank you for being such a good friend to him, John. Take care of yourself."

As I get in my car, I look over at his headstone in the yard one last time. "…Cheers, mate."

It's three and a half hours into London. Now I wish I had taken the train. At least I could have gotten some work done or some sleep rather than face 145 miles with nothing to keep me occupied but the radio. With Alex and Steve settled, 40 minutes in I'm staring ahead into the dusk trying very hard to not wonder how dark green-blue eyes could turn as bright as spring leaves when they start to cry.

_Christ. Listen to yourself, would you._

It had been a long time since I was on the dealer's end of ending a relationship. I did it for all the right reasons and handled it as well as I could. Honorably, rather than fucking her brains out as I would have killed to in that moment. Didn't even get a bloody hand-job out of it.

And I am still I walking away feeling like an utter piece of shit.

_Walk out a boyscout or walk out a bastard..._

The memory of Alex's voice when I told her that I would not be seeing _Kip_ again rings clear as a bell, "You what?"

"I'm not in the right place to have a relationship right now." I tried to keep my voice down so we did not provide entertainment for the entire plane.

"Did she know this when you guys started to…"

"…No."

"Dad!"

"I didn't mean…"

"Jeezus Christ! I've thought you were many things, but a tart wasn't one of them."

"Hold on…"

"Smarmy git," she muttered, jabbing at the raw nerve again.

"Shut it!" I raised my voice at last, and then, in the ensuing silence, I wondered exactly how much of this stuff should I talk to my daughter about? _This is weird_, I thought before I continued quietly. "I didn't know what was going to happen. I really liked _Kip_ and I would have…pursued things, but my work…"

"How long are you going to keep using that excuse?"

"It's not an excuse!" I growled under my breath. "You of all people know the kind of demands my work puts on me and those around me. If that wasn't bad enough, those people, like you, have now been pulled into it as well. We don't have any choice over that and I am sorry. I will do everything I can to protect you and I won't put anyone else at risk if I don't have to."

As Alex and I stiffly exchanged apologies, I remembered the cold terror that ran down my spine when Lexie was trapped below decks with the pirates in Port au Prince. It was, to my surprise, equaled by the same feeling when _Kip's_ screams were cut off as the boat she was tied to slipped under. I'd gotten lucky that day. The pirates were incompetent and _Kip's_ screaming, along with the floating debris from the boat she was tied to, had helped us find and reach her in time. Both my girls were safe, but the idea that they could have been killed because of me made me nauseous from the soul outwards. Still does.

Then there were David's suspicions, that a woman who had come from that proud of a military tradition was serving her government as much as I did. While I acknowledge the logic of the accusation, every instinct in me says it's ridiculous. Either she is a brilliant actress or she does not have the temperament for the work. Even in her thirties she's too headstrong and undisciplined, not to mention a bit volatile and occasionally the attention span of a five year old. God knows what she must have been like when she was younger. No wonder she did not follow in her family's footsteps. I can see her trying to take a poke at her D.I. the first time she was dressed down and feeling utterly justified as they hauled her away to the Glasshouse. How did a girl like her come out of a clan like that? A random genetic dump of "daft" every few generations?

_Adorably daft. Just daft enough to keep things interesting without driving you mad. _

How could a woman kiss like that if she wasn't honestly responding? If she did not actually want it? Want me? Full of warmth and sweetness, the catch in her breath, the little yearning noises in her throat, her body molded to mine as if she couldn't get close enough. _Like she needed to be about seven and a half inches closer (Seven. Seven and a half!),_ I think to myself as the memory rises up of her writhing against me, clutching at me and moaning my name as she came under my fingers, hot and wet and so soft.

_The instant I touched her, _my libido reminds me with a fierce surge of pride, possessiveness, and wanting as blood starts to rush to places I can't do anything about, especially while driving at 20 miles an hour over the speed limit.

_Easy on the accelerator Andretti._

Then afterward. The moonlight lying soft on her pale skin, her dark eyes, her hair like silk as she touched my face in a way that makes my chest ache remember, as if I was being…cherished….

The idea that that could be faked, that she didn't really... A cold knot forms in the pit of my stomach, dousing the heat of the memories if not the memories themselves.

It might be fun for James Bond to shag women who might kill him, but I wasn't interested in a coital knife in the back. It would definitely put a damper on foreplay.

Though Sophie Marceau might be worth it.

So would _Kip_.

Probably...once I got over...

Shit. I shouldn't be thinking about this. Done is done and for the best for her that it is. After leading her on and dumping her like that, she probably wouldn't have a comprehensive school, ground-pounder like me back anyway. Shove the memories back down where they came from. Just move on and focus on wrapping up complete bastard of a loose end….


	2. Chapter 2

"You could have an office, you know." Layla speaks from behind me.

"I could, but I'd never be in it."

"Then I'll have to keep sending you into the field. I can at least use my conference table then."

_HER conference table. Someone is getting use to command._

"So what have you found?" she asks, looking over my shoulder at the maps and reports.

"The recon teams did good work in Somaliland, but it's not pretty. Al Shabaab have placed small camps across this whole region." I point to the topo map of ridges and mountains along the Ethiopian border. "Small but well-armed and highly mobile. The only way to push them by traditional means would be to send two battalions in and it would still take months, if not years."

"Well, that's not going to get past J.I.C., let alone the F.C.O.. Options?"

"Most of the supplies they are bringing in from Ethiopia are shipped out to other units in the Puntland. The troops in the area are sustaining themselves from the local people."

"Well, they aren't exactly fond of the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia. Or us for that matter."

"No, but with the droughts the region is already struggling and Shabaab is just adding to the strain. The recon team reports that the locals are getting tired of taking from their families to support an army that will probably forget them as soon as they get into power. There's already been a couple small flare ups. I think a soft approach would be most effective. Hearts and minds. Give them food, medical supplies, help them fortify their villages and pastures. Place the right word in the right big man's ear once in a while."

"Weapons?"

"The American approach: Throw money and guns at the locals and wait for it to fuck us over in the end as it destabilizes the region more." I shake my head. "Most of these people are small scale farmers and herders. They just want to be left alone, not stage a coup. We need to show that we, as representatives of the TFG, can give them permanent, meaningful support. Show them we can help get the political mess out of their hair."

"And at the same time the F.C.O. can lean on the Transitional Government to address the concerns of the people in the region on the Somali side."

"Getting the people on the ground to withdraw their support will force al Shabaab out into the open. Make it easier to for the TFG and the Sunnis to deal with them, and easier for them to get support from the U.N. to do it."

"Good work."

"Speaking of our American cousins..." I don't turn towards Danni's voice from the doorway. She doesn't look at me as she brings the file to the table. Maybe getting back into the field is a good idea, I think as she goes on."...We may have found our Mr. Arlington. He left Heathrow Wednesday, probably called home by Langley who are eager to clean up the mess he made, but he never passed through U.S. customs. A next day five members of his staff were escorted back to the States and his assets were frozen."

"New administration, new policies. Depending on how far they wanted to distance themselves from this, he could be charged with treason." Layla comments.

Danni lays ledger print outs on the table, "He has the obligatory off shore accounts. Grand Cayman's, Switzerland, Hong Kong."

I look over bank names. "Well, they're no good to him now."

"Yes, that's what having your assets seized means." Danni snips while "casually" avoiding looking at me.

_Oh, bollocks._

Last night, after a long day in the office analyzing field reports while they tried to track Arlington down, Danni came by my place. I won't say I'm proud of it, but after everything that had happened I didn't refuse the distraction.

When I left for the Grand Bahamas I didn't know what was going on with Danni, only that it wasn't going anywhere. We hadn't really agreed on anything. We just kept fucking. I thought at first, stupidly, we had something. But while we got on well enough all we had outside the bedroom was the job. It was all we talked about. Like everyone but Layla, until I was cleared Danni thought I had gotten my mates killed and wasn't interested in delving into my life too much. Once I tried to talk to her about what happened, what As'ad had told Katie, but she felt I was grasping at straws. "It happened and you need to move on from it. You have a new life now," she said.

That kept things pretty casual. But as much as I can see the appeal of sex on demand, it wasn't enough.

And if she was sent into the field, hell if she stepped out of the office, I knew I would always be wondering...

Danni is brilliant analyst, smart as a whip. She runs the analysis section like a well-oiled information mining machine. She is also gorgeous, a fantasy, every girl you chased after in school, every pin-up you had in your locker. Problem is she knows it and has been using it for a long time. She is amazing in the sack, her hands and mouth working skillfully on me, riding me like a porn star, every moan, every little cry perfectly pitched and timed. But there is something missing, something spontaneous and warm and honest. Danni knows how to raise the fire, but stands back from it, acting like she is doling out a precious gift that she remains in control of all the time. She's been playing at it for so long, I don't think she knows where the performance stops and she starts anymore.

Still, last night I appreciated it for what it was: A brilliant performance. I got what I wanted, she got what she wanted. No harm. Right?

Until I woke up at dawn to feel a soft body against mine and a pair of hands wrapped around my cock...

...and said the wrong name.

I've had better mornings.

_A bucket of cold water and shouted questions after being chained up for 10 hours as part of interrogation training comes to mind._

"We don't have a lot of time," Layla reminds us, pulling me back into the conversation.

"It took some doing, but we were able to track down a safe deposit box in Lichtenstein that was under a new alias, probably new to Langley as well. The box was emptied shortly after Porter went missing in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, the owner took a plane to Turkey and then disappeared. Then I noticed that a couple of Arlington's CIA aliases had made trips to Kyrgyzstan. I starting looking at the photographs and noticed a few faces that became familiar, including this one." The picture slid across the table to me, a photo taken in the field through a long distance lens. Having only seen a single picture, I was not as familiar with the bastard's profile as Danni and Layla were, but I trusted that the figure Danni had circled was him.

Layla points at the man reaching his hand towards Arlington as he gets out of a jeep. "Urmat Baryktabasov, leader of the Meken Tuu party, a small but loud opposition to the Interim Leadership in Kyrgyzstan."

"Also wanted in Kazakhstan for wasting 511 million in state funds. Mob ties, drug trade..." Danni adds.

"Everyone needs a hobby," I throw in, but Danni only gives it a determined frown. I resist sighing audibly. _Fine._

"I guess they got tired of paying the landlords." Layla quips cynically about the recent 43 million raise in rent the U.S. is paying to keep a military base there.

Danni's reply contains more. "The yanks have to keep those dominoes from falling somehow."

"Christ, are they ever going to get over the Cold War?" Layla groans.

"To be fair, Manas is a major support hub for their operations in Afghanistan," I point out.

"The U.S. has been making very nice with the former Soviet states. Kyrgyzstan is one of the rare hold outs," Danni shoots back.

"But why there?" Layla interrupts. "Arlington has a partner in Afghanistan who would pay handsomely for what he knows. Why isn't he going there?"

"Don't know. I'll ask him," I answer.

"Excellent work Danni. Now that you know what to look for, use electronic surveillance to find Arlington. With Kyrgyzstan's ties to Russia, if the Americans have figured this out they will send everything they have to bury him. John, I'll have Michael arrange to get you into Afghanistan. By the time you get there, we should have a firm target location with insertion and extraction points." Yesterday Layla had made one pass at dissuading me from going after Arlington myself, made all the completely rational arguments why it was a bad idea for me to be personally involved in this op. Then she took one look at my face, sighed, and waved me out of her office. After what might have happened, that motherfucker was mine.

But today I was not getting away so clean. "But before we adjourn, John, would you get the door?"

I blink a bit in surprise but hop up to close the conference room door, watching Layla look from Danni to me while taking a deep breath before putting her hands behind her back and standing straight.

Oh, shit.

"Major Collinson may have been blind as to what went on under his nose, but I am not. What you do outside this office is your problem, but the instant it becomes my problem one of you is gone. Do I make myself clear?"

Danni looks at me for the first time since we came to work, panicked embarrassment in her eyes.

"Yes, Mam," we say in unison.

"Is there a problem?"

"No, Mam."

"Good. C...Go on about your work," she says before striding out, leaving Danni and me looking at each other over the table. I can't help but smile a bit at the near "Carry on."

Danni is not amused as she stands, gathering her papers up. "Well, that settles that."

"...Yeah. Danni. I am sorry." I say sincerely, but uselessly, for the twentieth time since dawn as I open the door for her.

She stops for a moment with a bit of a sad smirk, "I know John... Just give me some space for a while. I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." And she's gone.

She and that perfect arse. *sigh*

The situation was a bit messy and the dressing down embarrassing, but not much as it would have been had gone on longer. Danni was hurt and I felt like a shitheel, but she was more angry than heartbroken. When she was given the choice between her career and me, there was no question in her eyes. In the end the most important thing in her life had not betrayed her: The Job.

And as for me, after Jamaica.._.Fuck._ After turning the keys to the car I drove Alex home with back into the Firm's Vehicles office I rode my BMW Adventure home, welcoming the chance to get back in the field where life is simpler. _Women._

I curse myself and the distractions again when I pass familiar looking grey rental saloon parked on the corner of Horton Place, a saloon thought I saw on the Embankment this morning. Did I? I try to pull up the image of a license plate as I turn down the narrow Drayson Mews.

I've got to get my head into the game.

But wouldn't you know it, as I hit my garage opener my mobile rings.

"Hi Dad."

_What was it I was just saying about women?_ "Alex, I was just about to ring you," as I turn the motorcycle off. She never picks up, but I always leave a voice mail to tell her I am leaving town and when I might be back, then another when I get back in country. The only time she calls me is when she needs something.

"You're going away again," she says flatly.

"Yeah, but not for long. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing. I just...I dunno. I thought..."

"What?" I ask, a small glimmer of cautious hope building in my chest as I dismount.

"...I'm coming down in a couple weeks. I have some training sessions and thought I could add a couple days. Maybe we could hang out."

I inhale the flood of hope. I better be back by then. "That would be brilliant. Do you need a place to stay? I can make the guest room up..." It's already is made up for her. Remarkably, she agrees as I put my helmet up the shelf above the workbench and swing the backpack off my shoulders. "I'll get the details from you when I get back. I'm in the garage and can't write it down."

"I can e-mail them to you," she offers, but right now I don't want anyone privy to her movements so I make some shoddy excuse about antivirus software to warn her off committing the time and place of her visit in writing. From the tone of her voice, she doesn't believe it but drops the subject. "How's the white elephant?" she asks as I squeeze my way past the corpse of a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner that I bought on a whim, which means I spent two half-hour visits starring at the thing as I agonized over it, my checkbook, and the space in my new garage. The engine was in excellent shape, but the transmission was shot and the body was a mess. I decided that if I approached it slowly, I could retain my bank balance. It keeps me occupied the weekends I'm at home and not working.

"Still in the graveyard, but I ordered a couple parts from the States."

"When you finish it, can I drive it?"

"Maybe. I have to see how you drive first."

"Mum said I drive like you."

"Then the answer is no." I say deadpan as I unlock the door from the garage into the kitchen. I haven't been in it as much as I want to, but I like the new place. It's small enough to stay on top of cleaning easily, but after the bedsit it's more space than I know what to do with. Bit bare and spare yet, but it's home.

"C'mon...," she wheedles.

"We'll see. At the rate I'm going you'll probably be in the next insurance age bracket anyway. Look, I would love to chat but I'm on a tight schedule."

"So what else is new."

I used to get angry at this. Now I'm just tired of it. Fuck. When does it end?

"Sorry. Sorry Dad."

"Damn it, Alex. I wish you would believe me when I say that I understand why you are angry, but this is what I do and I'm tired of being called on the carpet for it."

"I know, I know," she says hurriedly. "That's kind of the other reason why I called. I...What happened in the plane. I didn't mean to lay into you like I did. It's just...habit I guess and..."

"I'm always leaving." I finish for her as I drop my shit on the counter. Makes sense. I left...I don't want to think of her name, just like Alex thought I left her and Dianne and, to Alex, making the same excuses. "Y'know, you're going to be the one leaving soon."

"That's...Yeah, I guess."

"And I wish you weren't going. It maybe months before I get to see you again, and I won't know what is going on with you or if you are safe. That is what you want to do, so I'm not going to stand in your way. But I'm going to miss you and worry about you every day."

"...You mean it?"

"I always have. Wherever I've been, I've always been your Dad...So we're square?"

"...O.k.," she whispers.

"O.k."

"Call me when you get back?"

"As soon as I can. I love you."

"Love you too. Be safe. Bye."

Maybe, just maybe...I think to myself as I check the window. Now I really wish I had spent more time at home. I would know which faces belong in this neighborhood. Though the businesses down the road probably keeps it sufficiently mixed up.

I try ringing Layla, but I have to leave a voicemail.

I'll have to pull the PLCE, the Personal Load Carrying Equipment, out of the bedroom closet before I start packing. They always try to issue me a set when I'm deployed, but getting them to they stay on and sit right is a pain in the arse. I've rigged mine up perfectly. We're looking for a quick extraction, so I will pack for combat rather than marching order.

I start by taking my rucksack from where it's been sitting by the door since I got home from the Caribbean over to the laundry area in the kitchen to unpack. Most of the clothes I pull out of the are lost causes, but then Greg had advised me to bring kit that was nearing the end of its usefulness. "Boat clothes" he called it. Other than my one "formal outfit" of jeans and a dress shirt, only a couple T-shirts and maybe a pair of trousers have enough life left in them to work on the car. The rest go in the bin. The last vestiges of an old life. Good riddance.

Then it's all those little things you accumulate over a month of travel; crumpled receipts, sweets wrappers, paperback books. I place the beat up copy of "Kim" on a shelf in the entertainment center. I helped people, and they actually knew about it and appreciated it. That's was new. Good lot too...

An unrestrained rich throaty feminine laugh echoes in my head...

I shove that thought away._ I'll need 300 9x19 rounds for the HK-MP5 - better make that a SD5, hard nose and hollow points for the 226, AWM sniper rifle with four cartridges of .338 Lupua Magnums, three grenades, six flash-bangs..._

I start sorting through the receipts as the phone rings.

"The driver will be there in an hour with your travel documents. You're wheels up at 18:50 and you'll reach Khandahar by 0600 tomorrow, local time."

"Do we have a way in?"

"We might. Have you taken the jump refresher course?"

"April." Being listed with the 21st lets me take part in the Regiment training courses. My reputation ensures that it is never a comfortable experience, but I can keep up with the latest techniques and weaponry without anyone taking undue notice while Section 20 saves the taxpayers a few quid.

"Good. MoD investments going splat all over the landscape is just embarrassing and the paperwork is a chore."

_Very used to command._

"Oh, bollocks!" I grumble under my breath.

"It's a last resort, but be prepared."

"I consider myself forearmed. But we have a problem..." I watch the tall, dark haired buggar walk by my place.

Again.


	3. Chapter 3

_I__ can't __make__ this __too __easy._I release the clutch and accelerate onto Kensington High Street, watching the grey Passat pull out four cars back in the rearview mirror. _Then__ again..._I almost laugh to myself. This would be funny had they left Lexie out of it. That still burns. I head for the heliport, the obvious goal for a man leaving town in a hurry. To be sure I distinctly said that when I last spoke with Layla to make arrangements.

The traffic has lightened up and is moving smoothly as my tail follows me toward the river. I turn down Earls Court and hear his tire blow out behind me. I stop at the corner and look back. I'm tempted to go the car and haul the wankers out on the pavement myself, but I let cooler heads handle it. This isn't the bastard I want anyway. One of our fleet has pulled up behind him, with the new bloke Stonebridge walking up to the side of the car on the driver side while another pulls up alongside. I can see the men in the grey saloon start to panic and one dips as if reaching under the seat.

Another bullet hole appears in their windshield. They stare goggle-eyed at the not-so-friendly reminder to behave themselves.

_Damn.__ Even__ with __my __helmet __off __I __did__ not __hear __that __shot_. I scan the rooftops, but see nothing. Whoever they are they pretty far out. Impressively so.

Stonebridge nods to me and I take off back to the HQ in the Ziggurat. I am heading down to the Section when I run into Dani in the lift wearing jeans, boots, and a flak-jacket, all scuffed along the elbows and knees.

"Where have you been?"

"Returning the L115A to the firearms locker," she says casually of the long range sniper rifle as she stuffs her gloves in her pocket and keeps her eyes on the descending floor numbers.

It's my turn to be gobsmacked, but I remind myself that women are frequently better marksmen and manage to keep from sounding like a complete prat. "... Where were you?"

"Eighth floor. About 600 hundred yards out. Wasn't too bad. The tricky part was aiming around your head."

My gut tightens slightly at the implication but turn my eyes front, smothering a grin at the heavily implied "fat head". _I__ can __take __my __punishment _and I keep my voice casual, "...Good shooting."

"Just remember: Just because you macho SAS types won't let us play, that doesn't mean we can't," she says briskly as we exit the lift, heading for the interrogation rooms.

"Nice little snatch and grab," I tell Layla in the corridor.

"Thank you. Hopefully one we pulled off under MI5's nose. I've worked hard enough to build up good relations with civilian intelligence here. I don't want to start with Thames House by crossing it. Stonebridge is bringing them in. I want you to observe. Just observe. In the meantime we can start the briefing."

In the observation room, I study pictures of Arlington and Baryktabasov, making notes as Layla and Dani fill me in on the players in the area that have a likely interest in what Arlington has to offer. I never carry the notes with me of course, but just the process of writing it down helps me sort things out and remember more details. However, I'm not so intent on gathering intel that I don't notice the folder Layla is holding back.

We've just finished the list of equipment I want waiting for me on the ground in Afghanistan when the first American is brought in. Dark hair, but not the one I saw walking past my place. The surveillance at the house had been of some general Semitic extraction, but this one is of European decent. They probably traded off with another surveillance team. His anger covers his humiliation at being made and snatched by another intelligence agency, but any fear he has is for his career, not his safety. _Little __prick._

Dani and Layla take the file with them into the interrogation room while I stay behind the glass.

"My name is Lawrence Joyner. A cousin from Langley?" the kid replies to Layla's question.

"I'm not feeling very familial," Layla says, handing his I.D. to Dani. "Verify that."

"You do not have a lot of time if you want to get to Arlington."

"Time is what you are going to have a great deal of if you do not start telling me something I want to hear."

He considers his options and starts at the bottom. "The new administration wants Arlington as much as you do. Things are going to hell in Afghanistan and they are looking for scapegoats."

"So why follow us?" she asks, playing innocent. "I'm sure with the vast resources at your disposal, you can find him on your own. He is your man after all."

"The American intelligence may have the best eyes in the sky..." The twat actually looks embarrassed. "...but we don't have the resources on the ground that you do."

He's trying to play Layla up and, to her credit, I can't tell if it's working or not. She strolls behind him.

"Flattering, but hardly informative. I suggest you tell us what you do know, or you are going to make quite the splash across the newswires by breakfast. With photos. Won't make dear Uncle Petraeus at Langley happy at all." She leans in for the kill. "Since you are here tailing British operatives rather than in the Green Zone working deals with Afghani warlords, I'm going to assume this is not what you wanted to pinnacle of your intelligence career to be."

He gawps like a fish. "Oh yes," she says almost mildly as she stands, her eyebrows arching with amusement. "I would."

She walks out, leaving him there to stew while she joins me in the observation room.

"What do you think?"

"Even if the CIA was in on it, that piece of rubbish is useless."

"Agreed, but I will continue to work at him to see if we can get anything else. I can hold him for maybe twelve hours before someone at Langley calls someone at the MI6. In the meantime, we need to get moving. They know you were going to using a military flight, but commercial is out of the question. There will be a helicopter on the roof in 10 minutes to take you to RAF Northolt. Dani is routing you through Qatar and then to Camp Bastion. By the time you arrive we will have travel arrangements for insertion and extraction. I don't like violating Kyrgyzstan airspace with the American presence there, but speed is of the essence." She hands me the file in her hand. "Here is a possible contact in Bishkek. If anyone knows exactly what is happening on the ground, he does. You went to the same school, so you should play well together."

I look over the information and hand the file back to her. _Great. _But I say nothing.

"We'll have to move you I'm afraid," she goes on.

_Just__ as __I __was __getting __used__ to __the __place._ The neighborhood was too posh for me anyway, but it was the housing MI6 allotted us, a safe house usually used for the more up market assets and defectors they had not needed for a while. A twinge of regret like I always felt when the service moved us and now I won't miss it. _Though__ Alex__ would __have __been __impressed._ "Just so long as the new place has spare bedroom and garage space."

"Not a problem."

"Who's taking care of my bike?"

"Oh," Lyala says with an evil grin, picking up my helmet as we walk out into the hall. She turns towards her office while I have to go in the other direction to Field Supply. "I wouldn't worry about that."

"Oi! Not one scratch!"

Seventy minutes later I am crammed into the jump seat of a C-130 with platoon of the 5th Royal Artillery deploying with their impressive gear to Afghanistan. I grab a handful of netting above me so as not to slide into the poor kid to my left as plane noses forty-five degrees up for takeoff. I get a few surreptitious respectful glances. _Christ,__ when __did__ I__ become __the __mysterious __hoary __veteran?_ But the noise is too loud for any conversation that doesn't involve shouting in someone's ear so I'm left alone. I look the men over, boys really, trying desperately to get comfortable while jammed up together on seats as hard as stadium terraces while trying not to get in each other space in an area the width of a small car. I smirk quietly to myself knowing all too well four hours in, half of them will be passed out on the shoulders of the other half while the music blaring in their earphones adds a rhythm to the 100 decibel drone of the engines.

_Happy Mondays and KLF on a beat-up walkman. That's what skinny Private Porter was listening to, trying to ignore his stomach dropping out from his arse at takeoff, trying to ignore the macho thumping of his squad mates, trying to ignore that he was being flown into a combat zone in a country he barely remembered from school geography lessons until deployment…Jesus, ages ago. A lifetime so. _

_Alex's lifetime. _

_Her entire fucking lifetime and now she's flying out to god only knows what shit hole._

_Damnit._

I appreciate the irony as I worry about getting home in time to see her. She's a good kid. I was surprised at how easily she took on responsibility on the trip, not having seen much of her but a few hours here and there of the stroppy teenager she had morphed into over the years. It tears at me still how much I hurt her by not being there for her, but I wonder how it could have been different. It's clear to me now that Dianne was looking for an excuse to bail out. Collinson just gave her one. Perhaps Lexie and I wouldn't have drifted so far apart had she not lost respect for me, but it still wouldn't have been easy. At least now there seems to be the beginnings of some new respect on both sides. Somehow she turned out o.k., and I realized on that trip I that while I miss my little girl, I liked the person she had become. _I__ hope __I __get __to __see __more __of __her._

Today it's Radiohead, Blur, and Shawn Colvin on an iPod, but as I pull the Nano out of my pocket my fingers slide against the piece of paper I jammed in there at the office.

It's a copy. I had found the original lying among the receipts and sweets wrappers I dumped out of my bergen rucksack on the kitchen table, a folded piece of paper heavier than the rest that I caught just as I was sweeping them off into the bin.

When I saw the familiar scrawl I felt like someone had punched me in the chest.

A poem.

_A fucking poem._

I almost chucked it. I had work to do. I couldn't be mucking about.

My throat went dry as I read it. Then I tossed it on the desk as I went in the bedroom to throw on fresh kit.

And I picked up again as I left. I felt silly ducking into the copy room before we left for the base. I didn't want to risk losing the original, but somehow I couldn't leave it behind.

I'm rubbish with poetry. I'm not the sort of bloke one writes poems to anyway. Christ, who writes poems at our age? If I didn't question _Kip_'s sanity already, I do now.

_Bombarded by illumination_

_Racked with knowledge_

_We forget…_

_Not all regions are charted_

_Not all hearts are known_

_I want to explore you_

_The fresh zephyrs of your space_

_The warm closeness of your arms _

_The bedrock of your being, immobile, eternal_

_Yet ever-changing in the light_

_I want to stand in the voice of your vibrant stillness_

_I want to dance like the sun on the surface of the rivers_

_That run so lively and sure in your eyes_

_And then as the day fades_

_And pale blue stars dot your velvet skies_

_I want to shelter in you_

_Curl up with you as man and woman_

_The firelight playing over the warmth of your skin_

_As we cast shadows by the hearthfire_

_Yours,_

_~K._

_She wanted to explore me? What the hell does that mean?_ Yeah, I wanted to explore her too. Starting with those little pink nipples so adorable they begged to be kissed, the soft curves of her belly, see if the carpet matched the curtains. Just see her naked!...Most of the women I've been with, Dianne, Dani, were tiny. I had to stoop to kiss 'em, hold myself off to keep from crushing them. But Kip, tall and strong, raised herself on her tiptoes and it was perfect. I could rest against those curves, rest in them. Bury myself in her and feel her legs around my back and watch her face when she comes. Would she look into my eyes, say my name? Does she moan, scream, or would it be the soft startled gasping cry like on the ship? What would she be like after? Would she snuggle up close, or just lie lightly touching? Would she be still, silent enjoyment of just being together? Would she want to talk, sharing bits of herself, the things that made her happy, that make her sad, that helped her survive. The military kid who went her own way. The small town girl that travels the world. The intellectual who tells filthy stories that somehow never seems cheap. The 'stoppy woman who sits quietly in the dark singing old blues songs to herself.

Where did she come from?

_...Christ, I miss…. _

I close that thought up in the painful knot in my chest and push it down, shoving the poem back in my pocket as I crank up "The Pretender" by the Foo Fighters and hope to fall asleep to the white noise of the engine. After touching down in Afghanistan I wouldn't be sleeping for a long time. Better grab it while I can.

I hit Bastion eleven hours later to pick up my gear and grab Merlin to FOB Kunduz. From there a surly RAF Warrant Officer who is not impressed with Special Forces or military-intelligence-fuck-you-very-much sets me on a Harrier across Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan.

A Harrier.

_A fucking Harrier!_

I love my job.

I have to admit, the inner kid in me had always dreamed of riding in one of these, but how often does one deploy in a Harrier? But this I has become a race and it is the only vehicle with the speed and range to get me there while avoiding American controlled airstrips. Layla must have a lot of pull from upstairs on this.

After the initial thrust of takeoff it took ten minutes to wipe the grin from my face. I just barely managed to keep from asking the pilot to do a barrel roll.

After being dropped off in the mountains, I change into mufti, hike through the woods to the nearest highway, and manage hitch a ride with a convoy of trucks heading right into Bishkek.

I try not to think of the good luck as a good omen. Hitting town eighteen hours after leaving London, I find a travel locker in the bus station to stow my gear and head for the address in the office building uptown in the file Layla showed me.

"Porter?" The man rolled the name around in his memory for a moment before his dark brown eyes flash in recognition. "Who the hell trusted a fuck-up like you with an op like this?"

_I'm used to that reaction._

"Military Intelligence."

"Well that makes sense," he snorts.

_That one too._

Layla's "possible contact", Major Dariush Arman Mehrjui, retired, is sitting behind his cheap metal desk as if it were a Canary Warf conference table. I'd heard of this bugger. He was the son of some Persian nobility that had fled Iran with the fall of the Shah. Joined the Army after Oxford, came into the Regiment a couple Selections after mine, rotating in and out as befitting an officer with his eye on a baton. I never worked with him directly. General impression was he had a bit of a stick up his arse, but he pulled his weight without throwing it around. Tall, dark, handsome in that pretty way women find irresistible. _Bastard._ He was a man you could apply "impeccable taste" to, from his perfect grooming to perfect tailoring on his Saville Row which almost hides his sidearm. I don't know what he is doing here rather than hosting an officer mess, though.

"Your security service has been working for the interim government for three years. If you didn't catch this man..." I toss the picture of Arlington and Baryktabasov across the desk at him. "...coming into the country to hook up with your employer's loudest opponent, I'd say they were wasting their money."

"He's CIA. What of it?" Mehrjui replies without batting an eyelash or picking up the photo.

"Not anymore he's not."

That catches his interest. "Off the reservation?"

"So far off, the yanks want him gone. We want him more."

He picks up the photo and casually considers it. "What did he do to make the Green Slime want to cross the 800 pound gorilla?"

I almost smile at the old soldiers term for military intelligence. "Crossed us first."

He considers me almost as casually. "Crossed them, or crossed you?"

"Does it matter?" This pissing contest is starting to piss me off.

"Maybe."

In the Regiment, we learn to play things close to the chest. We don't confide with former personnel about classified material, and one that is on the payroll of the Russian-friendly former Soviet State? I'd be breaking every security protocol.

_Can I beat the CIA to Arlington and bring him in on my own? Maybe, but it would be a hell of lot easier with Mehrjui's intel. Can I trust him?_

"He was selling us out in the Helmand province, making a deal with a local warlord, arms and intel. Trying to create the next Pinochet."

Mehrjui swears, chucking the photo on the desk as he stands, turning away to stride over the office window. "...And the Americans knew about it?"

"That's what we want to know."

He exhales slowly still looking out over the city. "The 2nd Mercians lost a lot of good men taking and holding the Korengal Valley, trying to win the people over with promises of protection from Al-Quaeda and the Taliban, trying to pinpoint where the enemy was while we were fish in a barrel for them... Then the Pentagon decided the Korengal wasn't politically important to their interests."

That explains it. Not the first time I had heard that complaint, nor the first time an member of the Regiment transferred out of the theatre or quit rather than deal with the clusterfuck of the "Coalition of the Willing."

"Fucking over their own personnel, I shouldn't be surprised." He shakes his head, turning back to me. "What do you need?"


	4. Chapter 4

_(Thanks to Caty for Beta-ing._)

I love a bit of proper soldiering.

No mystery. No grey areas. We are here to do bad things to a bad man.

Who put my little girl at risk.

Fuck 'em.

I'm still trying not to take my luck as a good omen. The Major filled me in on exactly who Baryktabasov has been making friendly with lately and sent out feelers to find where he might be hiding Arlington. In six hours I not only had a verified location, I had a schematic of the compound.

And a patrol.

Seems the Major is missing a bit of proper soldiering himself.

"Security gets a bit boring, but while I'm sure my client would not take it amiss if Baryktabasov were to end up collateral damage, I won't turn my company into a mercenary operation. Fortunately, he will be out of the country for the next couple days. I've pulled in two men I can trust from the field. That's all that can go missing for a night without raising any red flags. Now I was thinking Mac and Lister can take the south entrance..."

"Hold it. Are you sure about these numbers?" I ask. "Seems to me with the VIP they would have upped security."

It's a small compound around the mobster-with-aspiration's typically ostentatious house so it takes me and Mehrjui an hour to hammer out an assault plan with Sod's Law contingencies. I am an unknown quantity Mehrjui doesn't trust, but he doesn't ride the issue and it's a nice surprise when he doesn't pull rank when it comes to tactics. We are able to come up with something were both happy with. It's insane, but they don't pay us the small money for sane.

Still, it's nice to gear up in the black Nomex and greasepaint, carrying a small arsenal to make some proper mayhem to take out a proper bastard.

Now, waiting in the jeep in the dark on the edge of the property, I mentally run through the tactical plan as I check my gear; the fist-sized black canisters of flash bang grenades stowed on the opposite side from the standard L2A2 grenades, ka-bar knife, extra magazines for my HK MP5 rifle and the P-226 pistol, extra Hatton rounds for the sawed off Remington 870 shotgun strapped to my thigh. My PLCE webbing keeping everything exactly where it is supposed to be. Happy bunnies. I feel the beginnings of the adrenaline pumping through my blood as that odd calm washes over me.

The Major is quietly abusing the Americans while he uses night vision goggles to observe a canine unit passing along the perimeter of the chain link fence.

The evening breeze wafts the smell of lemon blossoms from the garden and there is a passing warm sensation on my back where the poem is tucked into my belt, but I swallow the sharp ache down and reply mildly, "Yanks aren't all bad."

"...Blonde or brunette?"

"Red head."

"Gingers aren't American or British," he lectures. "They're gingers. They need their own homeland."

I make of show of considering this. "I'd book my next leave there."

"You, me, and half the male population."

"Team two, in position," comes over our earphones and the Major gives the order to move up through the outer perimeter fence and the woods surrounding the house. We have a nine minute window to go over the fence and move through the woods to the inner wall. Plenty of time.

While team two moves to cover both entrances to the house, Mehrjui and I will go through the garden and around the garage to enter the house from the west side, working our way up the kitchen stairs and then back down to meet the second team for extraction.

We reach the garden wall and wait for the signal.

Suppressors, popularly misnamed "silencers," only cover the supersonic noise of the bullet and the muzzle flash. Even with them guns still make plenty of noise and soon the cracks of the exploding gunpowder fill the night air as Mac and Lister go to town, causing maximum confusion while keeping their exact locations unknown. The security staff open fire too quickly to be of any use, and soon it sounds like WWII.

That's the signal.

Heart pounding with mingled terror and anticipation of the hunt, jacked up with adrenaline to the point I feel like Superman. I find the cool space between the two that gets me in the zone, bringing everything into crystal sharp focus.

It's up and over the gardeners shed and we're in.

We ghost along the inner wall. I take out one security guard in front and out of my peripheral vision watch another in the garden drop. Mac is covering us. We reach the corner of the three car garage and check the front of the house to see how Lister is holding it down. While he has good coverage for anyone approaching from the main gate, he doesn't have the best firing position for the entrance itself and two of Baryktabasov's muscle have managed to find shelter.

Mehrjui ducks back, flinching as a round strikes the corner of the garage. "Cheeky bastard!"

"Where?"

"By the column," he replies.

I swing out as we both take aim and fire. "That'll teach him."

The second one is in the shelter of the doorway, from what we can hear of his panicked screaming and pounding on the door, he has been locked out. Not only is this funny as hell, this means there is a good chance our goose has not flown.

As we move to go through the patio doors, Mac comes over the coms.

"D, did you switch entry points?"

"Negative," Mehrjui replies as I try the doors.

"I think we have a new player, doesn't look local. Just went in one of the eastern ground floor windows."

The major and I look at each other in the dark. _Shit._ But "Roger," is his only reply.

Baryktabasov hasn't skimped on the structural security. The glass in the doors to the patio is shatterproof, forcing me to announce our presence using a Hatton round to blow the lock. Mehrjui rolls a flash bang in the room and we duck as it goes off. He then hits one guard that was in the room in the chest while I drop another that had poked his gun in the doorway. We hold our guns at the ready as we clear the room. The acrid smell of the grenade hangs in the air and my heart races as we listen to the sounds of the house.

Most of the gunfire is coming from outside. No noise on this floor. No sign of the new player. Target must upstairs. Shouts from above and footsteps moving down the marble stairs, we have to move before we are trapped in this room.

I take the lead into the foyer and drop two men coming down the main stairs, which confirms to the entire house to our location.

"Information, preparation, and bugger all," Mehrjui says.

With a curt nod from me we abandon our plan to go up the kitchen stairwell and move quickly up the main stairs, trying to cover the opposite rail and second floor landing above our heads. Two shooters are sheltered behind the second story walls, pinning us on the lower stairs. I lob a flash bang like a cricketer bowling straight up and over the second story landing, turning away from the light and noise as we run up the stairs to leave two more bodies on the deck.

More shouts, gunshots down the hall. Instinctively we both move towards it.

Lister's voice rings in my ear. "D, I have reinforcements flanking my position."

"Shoot and scoot."Mehrjui replies, advising him to retreat while engaging sporadically to keep the enemy confused to our numbers and location.

"Roger that."

I have a fucking heart attack as a bloke pops out of a doorway almost into my face, looking as surprised as I feel. His shot swings wide. He's too close for the MP5 to use except as a bludgeon, so I jam it under his jaw, throwing him back. Double tap and done.

In the meantime, Mehrjui has been covering our rear, downing two more in the hall. Anyone thinking of coming out now is having second thoughts.

I give myself a second for my heart to move down out of my throat. I hear a voice, an American voice, begging, in a room down the hall.

_Bollocks!_

All caution gone I run to the room the voices are coming from and kick the door in, just as there is a gunshot.

"Don't move!"

In the dim light from outside, I find I am covering the brunette I saw outside my flat. Who has his gun trained on me. _Fuck._

Three bodies in the room, Arlington among them lying vacant eyed on the floor, half his brains scattered across the furniture. _FUCK!_

"Who are you?" I demand loudly, letting Mehrjui know we aren't alone.

"You did not think you were the only loose end Mr. Arlington attempted to get rid of, did you?" His accent is RP with a slight shirring of the Levant. He is already moving towards the double doors leading to the balcony, keeping his gun level with my face the entire time.

"You're with Sharq, trying to build a better Afghani tomorrow." I quip sarcastically, just managing to keep the anger and frustration out of my voice.

The bastard actually laughs a bit, "If you want a bunch of idiots to fly a plane into a building, you get a true believers. If you want an intelligence issue resolved, you hire…."

"…a cynic?"

"I was going to say "...a professional."" He reaches behind him to flip the catch on the balcony doors. "Zahir Sharq is a valued client, nothing more."

"So what now? Do I have to track that rat bastard down just to sleep at night?"

"Even if you could Sergeant Porter, Mr. Sharq has greater concerns than pursuing petty personal vendettas across the globe. If you stay out of his business, you have nothing to fear from him. But I do have something to fear from your new friend the Major, so I thank you for your assistance getting to Mr. Arlington and bid you good night." And with that final dig at my professional ego, he is out the door.

"Fucking prick!" My curse is followed by gunfire as Mehrjui, who had made his way onto the balcony from another room, follows him to the banister.

I'm on the balcony right behind him, but the assassin is gone.

"SHIT!" We both echo, looking like idiots pointing out guns at nothing as we hear another security team start to sweep the house. We both look to the garage and without asking, start moving towards it.

"Arlington?" Mehrjui asks as the gunfire starts up again behind us and we break into a run.

"Dead."

He doesn't even blink, but taps his com. "Abort, abort, abort."

We cover the other as we each make the eight foot jump to the top of the garage and then down to the ground. Moving as quickly as safety will allow us to cover our arses, we make our way to the back wall.

I just hit the ground on the other side when Mehrjui opens up from the top of the wall at three guys trying to flank us from the right. One down, one still moving on the ground, the third gets behind a tree and stays there. There's no time to deal with him. After Mehrjui hits the ground we leg it through the trees back to the outer perimeter, breaking speed records as we hear the dogs coming through the wood. They snap at our heels as we go up and over, run for the jeep, and get the fuck out of dodge.

We've half a mile down the road when I flip the safety on my 226. They aren't following. Probably waiting for orders from the absent Baryktabasov. Mehrjui checks the coms and confirms that the others got away safely.

My quarry was snatched out from under me. I have nothing to bring back to my C.O.. I rip my com off and throw it on the dash with a "Fuck!"

_Still_, I remind myself, _any op you walk away from…_

Mehrjui and I exchange a look and we both start sniggering, and then laughing in our relief, exhaling the extra tension out as our minds and bodies switch to a lower gear.

It peters out as he pulls the jeep over where he has stashed a Hyundai. We change into civilian clothes and ditch the jeep before getting on the M41 toward the site for my extraction.

"You're not bad for a complete fuck up, Sergeant." Mehrjui says into the silence as he pulls on the motorway.

"You're not bad for sitting on your arse for three years, Major."

"Dariush. "D" if that's too much for a British tongue."

"John."

"…What happened back there?"

I sketch out the scene in the bedroom and from there we compare notes on the entire assault until the silence stretches out again.

"So I take it you're not being run out of Sterling Lines?" he asks of the SAS HQ in Credenhill.

"Er…No. It's more of a joint effort between Military Intelligence, SAS, and MI6. "

I can't reveal more than that, so the silence returns. I watch Dariush's fingers tap on the steering wheel as he wrestles with questions he knows he can't ask.

Whether by Returned to Unit or by choice, it is never easy leaving the Regiment. A great many of us are never happy returning to regular military service after the freedom, action, and brotherhood of Special Forces. And most SAS troopers face sitting behind a civilian desk with the same horror an Arabian would being tied up in a stall for the rest of his life. So many blokes end up in the private security or mercenary fields.

But it's never quite the same.

It's four hours to the extraction site, so I let the Major wrestle.

Arrangements for the trip back aren't so hurried. A Merlin is picking me up the far side of the Tajikistan border for the trip back, hopping through the British FOB's until they can put me back on a C130 at Camp Bastion.

We cross the border at sunrise and find the extraction site in the Pamirsky National Park as the sun has cleared the horizon. The Merlin revs up as they see us approach.

"Wanna lift?" I ask him.

He says nothing, but sticks his hand out, looking at me with a second appraisal as I shake it.

As I am strapping myself in, I watch "D" as he pauses in the backwash.

"Ready?" the pilot asks through the headset.

"Wait."

"D" dashes up to jump in the Merlin and I give the pilot the thumbs up. Clipping himself in and donning a head set as we take off, he sits back in his seat and crosses his legs like he expects the flight attendant to bring his complimentary cocktail any minute now.

"So…are you going to tell me what the hell happened in Basra or not?"

After catching up on sleep in a couple spare bunks through a twelve-hour layover in Cypress, we touch down on English soil 56 hours after I left it, empty handed but knowing that danger is over and my Lexie is safe.

I've decided I'm o.k. with that.

Layla isn't. Her only whip hand over the CIA now a single recorded conversation on flash drive they can easily disavow. I suspect what really makes her unhappy is that she will have to apologize for seizing their agents. She grills us through the debriefing for hours, first me, then Dariush, then both of us, then me again.

"For fucks sake! I only saw him in the dark for a couple minutes, there was no time to look for him, and if I don't get something more to eat than crisps and donuts, I will shoot someone."

She glares, but responds primly, "You're free to go. I'll look over your reports and we'll go over them again tomorrow in case you remember something else."

"Great," I growl and head for the door.

I hear her pen tapping on the table as I reach it "...I seem to remember something about a celebratory drink?"

I buy the drinks, but she pays for the dinner. After getting some decent food in me I wonder what I so pissed off at her about. We chat about what I think of Dariush and possibly bringing in his company as Section 20's own front rather than using one of MI6's. I smirk, watching the officer build her little empire. I know who will keep it running just like the Sergeant's Mess always does. She seems to know that too.

"We're moving you to Camberwell," she says as we walk down the street from the restaurant. "It's not so fashionable, but it's closer to the office and you won't have to fight the traffic over Vauxhall Bridge. We should have your things there by tomorrow."

I guess I'll have to find a hotel for the night, but something is up. "If you're moving me to Camberwell, what are we doing in Greenwich?"

"…Look, John. I've haven't been soldier for as long as you have, but I have worked intelligence longer. Who you trust is everything in this business, and not just to get the job done. Early on, I got to know one agent on the civilian side. Tough, smart, brilliant instincts. Made section chief in MI5. Very cool, very dispassionate. Too dispassionate. She had detached herself from everything and everyone. Lots of people do in this line of work, to protect the people around them and protect themselves. Or so they think. It took me some time to work out that the only way to not only physically survive this job but emotionally survive it is to find the right people and trust them. You used to have the Regiment, your patrol, and your family for that, but that fell apart and you spent a long time on your own. Now you are playing the lone wolf and in the field you do it very well."

Layla stops us on the sidewalk. "But as much as your ego may sometimes flatter yourself, you are not James Bond. No one is. Even in the field you have made some good choices who to trust."

I shift uncomfortably in my shoes, watching the traffic. "Must be handy to have an in with Thames House."

"She died last year. On the job, trying to save the Home Secretary."

"The Summit Hotel bombing."

Layla nods. "I was out in the field, heard about it from Collinson. Six people went to her funeral. Just six. Mostly people she worked with. And she was probably fine with that, but I don't think I would and I don't think you would. More to the point, I think I have come to know you Sergeant and I think you need someone who wants you to come home in one piece. You need someone to come home to." She nods towards the shop window we're in front of.

I follow her gaze and my heart stops.

_Kip_ stands against the polished wooden book shelves in the shop window talking to someone. Her silky, untamable hair falls down her back. The straight gold locks barely covering richer red loose curls near her neck, a gentle disarray that doesn't fit into the sleek fashionable lines of city life. Her soft, square, country-girl face, with a brain too smart and restless to remain there. Yet there was something too daft and willful and romantic to fit into this world. My world, where people are defined by their jobs, their roles. Solider, father. I remember how it ripped my heart out to have that taken from me. It nearly ended me until I could risk everything to get that back. Yet _Kip_ defines herself by nothing, accept perhaps herself. She seems to accept that she doesn't fit, doesn't make sense, and carves her own way. Standing apart, her narrow dark green eyes watching the world warily, yet scratch the surface and she was laughter and warmth and softness. Warmth and softness I could wrap myself up in.

Her pale skin, smooth and lightly dusted with fading freckles, is as clean as it was on board ship. Her rose pink lips moving as she says something and smiles a bit. Sadly. But not cold. Never cold. Her strong body and long curves. I remember those curves, her skin, her scent, her heat as she held me, writhed against me. She didn't stand back from the fire, she was the fire.

"She's clean," Layla says, and I realize I'm gawking and move back from the window so as not to be seen. Layla chuckles and I give her a dirty look. "Dani did a very thorough check." I take a breath and look at the sidewalk, again squirming a bit. "Don't worry about Dani, she's come through far worse. Her ego will survive you."

I have had a couple good C.O.'s in the past, ones that counseled as well as commanded, but I didn't expect it from Stick-Up-Her-Arse Layla. "Thank you. Boss."

"I'm just taking care of my assets. The Green Slime wants you around for a long time to use and abuse." But she flushes with pride at the Regiment's informal term for a C.O., and she can't hide the smile.

I can't either.

She hands me a slip of paper. "She's in Blackheath. I have to run. "

"More work, Captain?"

"I have a date, Sergeant." She starts back to the car, calling over her shoulder, "I'll see you tomorrow. Noon."

And standing on the street, for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I am in the right place.

Almost.

I'm sorely tempted to walk into the store to snog _Kip_ breathless, but I doubt the scene would go down that smoothly and the reasons I had on the ship are still valid. If anything, this entire situation has proven how thin the walls are between my life out there and the home I have here. Nor could I be sure to be there for her as a man should be. I could never keep Dianne happy, and my life is even less predictable now.

_But __Kip __isn't __Dianne_ I think, watching her bend over to shelve a book.

_Right Porter, like you could live in the same city as that arse and not try crawling into her knickers. _

Hope there's a chemists on the way to Blackheath.

_~Continued in Ch. 10 of "So I Met John Porter..."_

_P.S. Yes, there is a slight tip o' the chapeau in here to my favorite shooting team in modern fiction: Rifleman Daniel Hagman and Rifleman Harris of the Sharpe series, by Bernard Cornwell._


End file.
